


When Oblivion is Calling Out Your Name

by Enlyien



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Cancer, F/M, Lots of tears went into this, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 03:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enlyien/pseuds/Enlyien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aqua finds out she has cancer. During treatment, she finds a reason for life.</p>
<p>Title is a line from 'Oblivion' by Bastille.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Oblivion is Calling Out Your Name

The time Aqua falls, she thinks nothing of it.  She had never been the most graceful of people, despite years of dance helping her through her awkward stages.

Aqua was nineteen when she noticed the massive bruise on her back. This was two months after her fall down the stairs.

Her mother was worried sick about, and after ranting to her daughter about different things running in the family, the two go to the doctor to get it checked out.

As they sat in the waiting room, so much white and smelling so clean, Aqua read a magazine. Her worry was buried under the current events in entertainment and her nose burning from the chemicals trying to wash away the stench of death.

When she got called back and examined, the doctor had a strange look on his face. When asked about it, he shook his head and scheduled more tests. Aqua’s mother couldn’t handle it and interrogated the man. He relented and spoke of his suspicions. He kept repeating that nothing was certain, the tests would make sure. Aqua’s mother at that moment lost hope. Her tears were like raindrops as the doctor lead Aqua from the room, taking her for blood tests and scans.

Her mother had always had a second sight, something she claimed to have come from her side of the family, the side hailing from Spain. After this, Aqua believed everything her mother said.  
However, her mother was silent on the way home. She said nothing even as Aqua asked about dinner. She had just shut down, closing her bedroom door.

The blunette fended for herself that night, and a few days after.

Before she knew it, the results had come back, the phone echoing through the empty house.

It was cancer, a small tumor on her brain, at the base of her neck. Nothing a few treatments and surgery couldn’t help. The doctor spoke to Aqua only, her mother having refused to look at the girl since they got home from the hospital.

That was no problem, Aqua thought. She was over eighteen, therefore able to schedule her own appointments, drive herself there and get home just fine. Their insurance would pay for everything. It would only take time.

Two weeks later, Aqua had her first chemo treatment. She had never felt so sick. As the chemicals were entering her body, she felt them burning. Her veins were on fire. Her spine was like lead.  
She spent twenty minutes alone in the bathroom, expelling anything and everything that was in her stomach, eyes watering and throat roasting. She was able to make it home though.  
Again, her mother didn’t speak to her. it was as if there was a plague on the house, quarantining Aqua’s mother from the daughter that only needed love.

After the first terrible treatment, things got easier. Chemo went in easier, and she hated to admit it, but being sick was easier too. Radiation didn’t feel like anything, just the cold metal of the table against her back and the heavy lead blanket over her hips.

Weeks passed, then months. Soon, Aqua had lost weight, color, and her usual happy glow. She really just looked tired now. Her mother had been spotted every now and then, a ‘hi’ and ‘I love you’ passing Aqua’s chapped lips. No response.

Her mother did speak to her the day of the surgery. The chemo and radiation had shrunk the tumor enough that they could finally go in and cut away what was left of the monster in Aqua’s body.

When Aqua awoke from the sedation, her mother was sitting next to her bed, watching her. Her eyes were sparkling, whether from happiness or unshed tears, the girl wasn’t sure. She was just cold. She mentioned it to her mother in a croaky voice and was responded with a number of blankets being tucked around her. Tears fell from cerulean eyes, the girl feeling like a child, this woman’s child, once more.

After that day, things returned to normal. Aqua was listed officially as in remission and given permission to do as she did as a normal girl again. She thought things had finally gotten better. She had always remembered that saying of ‘things always get worse before they get better’. It was a saying the girl lived by during those trying months.  
Months later, everything was going really well. She had turned twenty and finished her second year of college. Her teachers had been really understanding and given her plenty of time to turn in work and make up tests. She was content with her GPA and was focused on getting it up the following year.

It happened on her way home from the mall. She had been with her dear friends, Terra and Ven. They had recently gotten home from their own schools and were starting their summer break. The three of them were the best of friends despite the distance that higher education had put between them. She had left them after eating dinner with the boys and had been on her way home. Everything was fine.

The next thing she knows, her eyes are opening under a bright light. There’s a man’s voice calling to her, and everything aches. She’s sat up slowly (when had she gotten on the sidewalk?) and a blanket is wrapped around her shoulders. The man, a police officer, explained to her slowly what had happened. She had passed out behind the wheel and swerved into oncoming traffic. No one was severely hurt. Her mother was on the phone, her voice calm. Very unlike her in this kind of situation. Aqua assumed that that should have been her first clue to what was happening.  
A visit to the doctor that night revealed what she had believed.

The surgeons had missed a part of the tumor and it had gone internal. After that announcement, everything was ringing in Aqua’s ears. She didn’t want to listen. She only nodded when she thought she was being asked questions. Her mother was nowhere to be seen. She had evidently signed up for more treatments. That was fine, it wasn’t like there was anything else she could do. She’d rather avoid the searing migraines and eventual shutdown that leaving the tumor alone would cause.

The following day, Aqua had to see a mechanic about fixing her car. She hadn’t been expecting who she met, though.

His name was Vanitas Steinway. The two of them got along great at first. He was very professional, telling her what exactly he had to do and what it would cost. She was surprised by his knowledge and how cheap it was. She immediately agreed to his terms, heading out to her friend’s waiting vehicle.

She came back every now and then (a rental car was supplied by the insurance company) to check on her car and just talk to the man working on it. He warmed up to her slowly, the two soon talking about various things. A few more visits and she was considering him a friend. Soon, a very close friend.

One day was all it took to change everything between them. She had already been through three rounds of chemo and two of radiation at this point.  
He had had a very bad day, and after she comforted him, he revealed to her a tragic past, his reason for working on vehicles. Vanitas’s parents had abandoned him and swerved off the road, killing them instantly.

Aqua held him through his tears, soothing the raven. She was there for him. She’d be the one he could lean on. Never once did she mention her condition. That could come later.  
Later it did.

It was after her fourth round of chemo, getting more put in her, more than she had gotten the first time. Aqua had been on the phone with Vanitas, telling him she’d come over tomorrow so they could go out to lunch. Unfortunately, she had spent the rest of the night and into the afternoon in the bathroom. She could hardly believe that there was that much in her stomach as she lay in the floor of the bathroom, a rolled up towel as her pillow.

She had finally closed her eyes when she felt herself being picked up. She was laid in bed gently, warm arms encircling her freezing body. As she sobbed into his chest, her body breaking down around her, Aqua poured her heart and soul out to the man holding her.

When she woke up, Vanitas was downstairs cooking, from what it smelled like. Things changed from there. She announced to friends, new and old, about what was happening in her life. Most of them supported her, others didn’t say anything. Aqua wasn’t surprised.  
Weeks later, five chemo and four radiation treatments into the cycle, she and Vanitas went public. Her car was long finished, but she still went and visited him at his shop, occasionally helping keep it tidy (when she wasn’t so exhausted she couldn’t move).

This was around the time when things started to go downhill. Vanitas noticed her visits getting shorter and fewer in number, so he began going to her. Some days she was up and about, doing schoolwork or cleaning. But most days she was in bed, mainly sleeping against his side, a hand always supporting her head.  
Another few weeks later, things were getting worse. Vanitas had finally had enough of it, taking her to the hospital after she had spent over forty-eight hours running to and from the bathroom.

They got her checked in and fluids flowing in through an IV. Her vision wasn’t working for her, but she knew it was Vanitas who had kissed her softly before whispering that he had to go to work.

When she woke up (hours or days later), she woke to a vase of flowers next to her bed and a stack of cards from various friends who had heard about things going south. Toothpick thin arms were tucked under blankets after straining themselves to hold and read the cards. Aqua hadn’t realized how awful things were until she almost fell going to the bathroom (legs too weak to support what was left of her once full frame) and saw herself in the mirror.

She had seen pictures of girls recovering from anorexia and bulimia, but this… this was hell. She was literally a walking skeleton, and as the tears flowed down her cheeks and she used her IV stand as a support, she wondered how she would get through this.

There was a new bouquet of flowers in a vase next to her bed a following week. She watched the petals flake off, one by one, day after day. They dropped like the friends that fell out of her life, sometimes two or more at a time. They had all given up on her recovery. Occasionally, a day or two passed in which no petals fell. Then she prayed that her suffering was over. But she knew the next morning, there would be a few less petals on the withering roses.

Her mother stopped visiting her, as rarely as she did in the first place. The only person who visited her anymore was Vanitas. As he watched his love waste away, he refused to cry. If he cried, Aqua would have nothing left to hold on to. He prayed to whatever god was listening that she would somehow make it out of this alright. She had been the first he’d really felt this way about, and her about him.

After being with her for a few days, he had kissed her goodnight, ‘Ich liebe dich’ on his lips.

He had been gone for less than five hours, but it was already too late. When he got back to her, a new bouquet of flowers in his arm, he was stopped by a nurse. She told him that Aqua Leonov had passed in her sleep, a smile on her lips.

 

The funeral was short and sweet, just like her life. Her mother could barely get words out, thanking everyone for coming to celebrate her daughter’s life.

Vanitas didn’t say a word to her. The only one he spoke to was Aqua, who sat next to him while holding his hand, as beautiful as when he first met her.

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Jeff Caldwell;
> 
> May 2nd, 1971-November 13th, 2012
> 
> Written using personal experiences, both myself and my father.
> 
>  
> 
> Originally posted on my Aqua rp account; http://www.aquafall.tumblr.com/


End file.
